RHEIN ENERGIE STADION — Cole Palmer slots the ball to Kobbie Mainoo. The Manchester United midfielder steals into the box ahead of the last defender to cut a ripper of a pass into the kill zone. Nobody there. We were 73 minutes into the drab 0-0 draw with Slovenia. No England player had been there all night. The first example of intuitive connection was so alien, none read the room.
Here’s an idea, Gareth. Mainoo and Palmer must start the next match at Euro 2024. We needed at least a sense of a beginning. Perhaps this was it, the evidence that Southgate can no longer ignore. Mainoo provided cohesion, Palmer a blade, a point of difference, a dropped shoulder, mystery, menace. That’s all we ask, something to rouse the spirit. Conor Gallager was never that. Not his fault.
Southgate accepted the inevitable at half-time, replacing Gallagher with Mainoo. Whilst that might have appeared an early intervention, it was in fact 45 minutes too late. Mainoo should have started. He immediately brought composure and style. His love of small spaces, jinking this way and that, slotting the quick ball, had an immediate impact, prompting others to engage with like purpose.
Palmer was given the last 20 minutes and, surprise, surprise, England began to resemble a team, a cohesive force with meaningful forward propulsion. Take the bloody handbrake off was always the shout. The point is, the handbrake was off. The starting line-up was Southgate’s solution to the torpor of the first two fixtures.
As England laboured through another soporific first half the realisation dawned on a flagging audience that what they were seeing might be as good as it gets. We will do our talking on the pitch, Southgate promised. If that is so, his England team has lost its voice. The big move, Gallagher for Trent Alexander-Arnold in midfield, made not the slightest difference to England’s shape or flow.
How could it? In type at least Gallagher is a duplication of Declan Rice, indefatigable, willing, charging about the place, but exerting very little control. What England needed was a player to set the tempo by taking control, someone comfortable on the ball. Paul Scholes advocated Mainoo before the game. He didn’t shout loudly enough.
The passing was sideways and slow. The ball always in front of the Slovenia defence. The crowd, already suffocated by the sultry burst of summer in Cologne, were drained of all joy in a dispiriting start to the game.
Earlier Austria and the Netherlands traded anvils in Berlin when the sun was still high in the sky. England killed the vibe with another performance that screamed out for change. Your best players are always your best players was Southgate’s justification for retaining the core group. Until they aren’t.
Southgate’s stubborn reluctance to think differently, to respond to circumstances has been a recurring difficulty. It looked like Slovenia had read the England playbook from back to front, closing the spaces, snapping into tackles, all hardcore disruption.
Where was the great Jude Bellingham in all this, La Liga player of the year, Ballon d’Or young player of the year, Champions League winner, tormentor of Serbia for 45 minutes? Lost is the answer, looking for clues, wondering where the hell Vinicius Jr was. Every time he looked to his left he bumped into Kieran Tripper dragging his heels. Enough to break the spirit of Zeus.
There was another pointer late in the game with the introduction of Alexander-Arnold for Walker. As the game broke open, Alexander-Arnold’s laser passes added serious value. Walker’s athleticism is a gift hard to ignore, but his distribution is nowhere near Alexander-Arnold’s, and when the pitch opened up, Liverpool’s sorcerer gave England an extra dimension.
The end felt like the future. Start the team that finished in the last 16. The addition of Mainoo, Palmer and Alexander-Arnold in a position he knows offered England a new way of seeing. The tired old certainties of hard-running types who never let you down, like Gallagher, are so yesterday.
We thought Southgate understood that. The closer to the summit he has brought England, the more conservative he has become. What was once about freedom and licence to play has morphed into reticence and avoidance of risk.
Southgate had little choice but to roll the dice towards the end since a victory for Denmark was still possible and had it come would have required England to win. One win and just two goals in an underwhelming group was a sorry manifestation of old England. At least Southgate glimpsed what is possible if he is spunky enough to embrace adventure in the knockout rounds. At least he knows what doesn’t work.
from Football - inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/AloO46r
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